When we pull up to my family home, where Frank insisted we meet, I look over at Noah, who’s staring at the monstrosity of a house with wide eyes. To most, the place looks ostentatious with its marble fountains and rose gardens and colonial-style pillars holding up the second floor wraparound porch, giving it an aerial view of the hundreds of acres it sits on, but to me it’s just home. At least it was when my parents were alive. My dad built this home for my mom for their ten-year anniversary. Every detail came from love, and now, I don’t think I can even go in. And I definitely have no desire to stay—or live—here.
“I don’t think you ever told me,” Noah says. “What did your dad do for a living?”
“He was a real estate developer… amongst other things.”
Frank walks outside to greet me as I turn the car off and get out, Noah following my lead.
“Isaac, thank you for coming. I know this is hard for you.”
I make introductions and then we follow Frank into the house. The smell of my mother’s floral perfume hits my nostrils and it takes everything in me not to break apart, but I push it down, not wanting to lose it again. I can lament in my misery later when I’m alone.
“It seems your father never got around to updating his will,” Frank says once we’ve had a seat in my dad’s office. I keep my eyes on Frank, unable to look around at anything that’s my dad’s. It’s too hard, hurts too much.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“His will was created before you made your decision to go to college and take a different route…”
He doesn’t have to explain further because I know what this means without him saying another word. My dad would’ve given me the damn world if he could, and until I left for college, his dream was for me to join the family business, to work alongside him and one day take over, so it makes sense he would make sure, in his death, I’m taken care of.
“Since you were his only child, he left everything to you,” Frank says. “His homes, his companies, his assets… Everything that was his is now yours.”
I nod in understanding. My life is no longer mine. I’m no longer a college graduate seeking employment. I’m Isaac Petrosian, real estate developer and vigilante.
CHAPTER THREE
ISAAC
Twelve Years Later
“Fuck!” I pound my fist on the top of the desk and stand, pissed as hell. “Brad was supposed to sign off on the permits, so what the hell is the problem?”
Noah doesn’t even flinch, used to my outbursts. It comes with the territory when you’re running one of the largest real estate development companies in the country and have enemies standing on the sidelines waiting at every turn to see you fail.
He hands me the paperwork. “He was on board... But there’s been some new developments.”
I skim the papers, my anger rising with every word I read on the page. “Are you kidding me? The ERM has deemed fifteen acres a goddamned wetland?” I drop the papers onto the desk and pace the floor. The hundred-acre parcel of land was approved to be turned into an industrial park. When my father purchased it over fifteen years ago, it only had one acre of wetland and since then, Brad, the mayor of Crystal Harbor, and I came to an agreement. I would build the community a new park and he would look the other way while I had that acre bulldozed over. Now, days before we’re scheduled to clear the land, he’s pulling this bullshit? The ERM—environmental resource management—is only called out when someone calls the county and makes a damn complaint, and Brad damn sure knows better than to do that. This makes no sense and I’m going to get to the bottom of it.
“Let’s go.” I snag my jacket from behind my chair and shrug it on, grabbing my keys and pocketing my phone.
Ten minutes later, we enter the town of Crystal Harbor. Situated just inside the Marion County limits, about twenty years ago, it was voted on and declared its own town, separate from Chester Creek, the city I live in. The population is six thousand and everyone knows everyone.
Aside from when I’m doing business, I try to stay out of this damn town as much as possible. It’s been over a decade since my parents died, but it still hurts to be here. Instead of living in town, I renovated the marina my dad left me. I updated the docks and warehouses and erected a three-story building. The first two floors belong to Petrosian Enterprises. The third is where I built the condo I live in.
I offered to build Noah one as well, especially since I owed him for moving here with me and helping me handle my shit, but he likes his space and privacy, and instead, chose to build a home on the edge of town on several acres off the beaten path.